Those Quiet Mornings
by MaybeWolf
Summary: A vehicle the barely passes for a car, a refurbished convertible and two early mornings. Rori fluff.


**[Robbie's POV]**

The door opens and Tori bursts through it, but the sunshine that usually follows in her wake hangs back.

My throat tightens as she trudges towards me. There's something like a hurricane ambling behind her and storm clouds swirl within her darkened eyes. A lump begins to form in her throat and my fingers constrict around my steering wheel. I can almost feel the lightening bolts flying away from her body as she sits down next to me.

Her eyes flicker along the lines of the vehicle that we're currently sitting in. I guess you could loosely describe it as a car even though it's got no windows, and it's missing a motor. The scenery rolls past us at a glacial pace as conversation flitters between us. I find my eyes crawling along the street when we come to a halt before a stop sign. It's almost impossible to look at Tori. She's inhumanly attractive. She's something like a fine piece of art, while I'm a scratchy crayon drawing that parents reluctantly pin to their fridge.

"Hey Robbie, I know this is the car of the future and all, but where's your convertible?" Tori asks, hurling us into conversation once again. I turn towards Tori, wondering why her eyes flitter away from mine. She's watching the road in front of us again, as though the traffic before us is suddenly going to abate.

"It's in the shop…again." I reply, plastering a grin to my lips and rolling my shoulders. I'm pretty sure it spends more time being repaired than being driven. Tori's eyebrows knit together as her gaze settles upon me again. I'm wondering if my mere presence is making her mood worse by the second when she blinks. Once, twice, three times, and then her lips split into a smile. If I wasn't so terrified, I'd probably reflect it with one of my own.

"You really ought to get something a little more reliable. You know, something that doesn't require a mechanic every trip and a half." My eyes slip to the side, catching Tori's profile at the edge of my vision. There's a lump and I'm not quite sure why. Conversation with Tori comes easily, but I can never seem to catch my breath around her. I'm ridiculous.

"What, something like this?" I counter, tapping the steering wheel resting between my knees for emphasis. Tori's laughter skitters through the air, it's the sound of a storm clearing once and for all.

"Uh, maybe not this reliable." Tori replies, her lips once again twitching with barely contained laughter. I shake my head slightly, and a faint smile tugs at my lips. I heave a sigh of relief as sunshine from Tori's grin warms my shoulder. It's so rare to see her mood as it was a few moments ago. She's always so calm, so carefree. I guess that's what rendered her darkened mood a total eclipse of the sun.

"Somebody is feeling better…" I muse, allowing my eyes to flicker upon Tori's form for just a second. It's kind of nice, just Tori and I. She's not tossing that same concerned look that everybody else does upon me. She's just speaking to me like I'm a real person and not just some twisted shadow at the corner of a room.

"Yeah…I guess I am." My eyes fall upon Tori for another stolen second, and I feel kind of dizzy. Tori's hands are folded within her lap and she's smiling. It's not just the sort of smile that follows laughter, but the kind that curls somebody's lips in gratitude. I kind of wish that I could just reach out and hold onto this feeling for the rest of my life, it's nice not being somebody's burden for once.

"So what was bugging you?" I ask, the casual tone in my voice cracking at the edges and revealing the concern bubbling beneath. The words fly between us, and when I look at her again, Tori's got a new look on her face. I guess it's something like showers in summer. It's a world away from the way she looked when she left her house, but guilt swells in my chest when I realize that I've brought back the rain. I guess its things like this that have rendered me eternally single.

"Family stuff." She states with a sigh, shifting slightly on the spot, as though the words themselves sting. Her eyebrows dip down, and the world around me seems just a little bit darker. I've felt the same sting that's going through Tori's body right now. I guess it just goes to show that even the calmest surface has an undercurrent. Behind the sunny smiles, Tori isn't all sunshine and flowers. She's human just like the rest of us. The thought's as depressing as it is comforting.

"Like what? We can talk…well you can tell me, I can listen." I babble, unable the stem the flow of barely cohesive words that are trickling from my lips. I finally pull my words to a halt and tear my eyes away from the road. Tori's eyes are still watching me attentively, not many other girls bother to pay attention to me when I start rambling like that. Not even Cat. My heart gives a happy little twitch when the corners of Tori's lips flicker upwards.

"Just…it kind of sucks when your parents stop caring." Tori replies, heaving a broken sigh that jumps out of her lings. I blink at the revelation as my mind tries to wrap itself around the concept of somebody, anybody, not caring for the girl beside me. It's utterly baffling and drags my mood into the gutter that of all people, it's her parents that have made Tori feel this way.

"Care to elaborate?" I ask, twirling my hand between us, as if to coax the words from Tori's lips. She gives me this feeble little smile, like she doesn't want to unload this on me, but that nobody else ever asks. I suppose when you're as outwardly flawless as Tori, nobody bothers to look closely at the cracks around the edges.

"It's just…Mom never even asks if me or Trina would like breakfast or dinner anymore. She just cooks something for herself and leaves us to…never mind. I'm sorry for mentioning it." Tori's confession crumbles under the weight of her urge to maintain peace. Her eyes linger on the floor as she threads her fingers through her hair. I don't think I've ever seen Tori look less like herself. If her mood before was something like a hurricane, then the one infecting her right now is the scattered remains left in its wake.

* * *

_**"Hey Tori, can I pick you up on friday?" – Robbie**_

_**"Uh, sure. Why?" – Tori**_

_**"It's a surprise!" – Robbie**_

* * *

**[Tori's POV]**

I'm just barely awake right now. Robbie insisted that I be ready extra early. I guess it's because we took so long to pedal our way to Hollywood Arts last time. I'm hunched over the table, watching Mom eat is depressing, so my eyes focus on the vague conversation between Robbie and myself from a few days ago. My fingers have hovered over the delete icon a few times, but I haven't been able to bring myself to press it. I'm not even sure why. I'm sifting through the words again for what feels like a thousandth time, when the screen abruptly shifts into a new message alert. It catches me off guard and I nearly drop my phone.

My heart is still jumping around in my chest when I read the message. It's Robbie and he's outside. Heaving myself upright, I mutter a quick goodbye to my mother and step towards the door. Plastering a smile to my lips, I try to mask the pain in my movements. It's my problem, nobody else's. There's no reason to darken somebody else's day with my bad mood. My eyelids are heavy, just like my lips. But before I open the door, I lift them both into the sparkling expression that I know Robbie is expecting.

"Hey there girlie." Robbie greets, appearing before me as I sling the door open. His arm jerks upward in a robotic gesture that I'm guessing is meant to be a wave. The melancholy within me ebbs at his quirky movements, something about him driving the darkness to the back of my mind.

"Hey Robbie, so what's this surprise?" I ask, cutting through the small talk. A second slips past before Robbie whirls around and waves toward a bright red convertible. It's vaguely familiar, but the paint shimmers too wildly in the sun, the panels are too smooth. It can't be the junker that he's been hauling along the freeway for the past year. My eyebrows hurtle up my forehead as Robbie's lips curve upward.

"I finally caved and used the rest of my bar mitzvah money to get it fixed properly." Robbie shrugs, his shoulders leaping into the air in a way that's more confidence than trepidation. The corners of his mouth leap into a crooked grin, and for some reason my lips echo it as we amble towards his car.

We probably look completely mismatched. Robbie's got this awkward march, something that suggests his limbs have never met before and I'm supposedly so self-assured. He dips in front of me and opens the passenger door with an awkward jig, but it doesn't matter. At least not to my heart, which gives a little kick in response to his gesture. I'm just starved to attention though, right? A gnawing in my gut makes me wonder if it's the company and not the circumstance.

"So why did we have to leave so early if we're not pedaling?" I ask, once Robbie throws his car into gear and we're travelling away from my home. Robbie's fingers drum the steering wheel in response to my question, and the confident front that he's trying so desperately to project begins to flicker and fade away.

"Ah, part two of my surprise." Robbie replies, with a voice that crackles and tows the line between coherent thought and a mish mash of words. My jaw tightens and there are so many questions that I want to ask him, but I settle for silence and fix my eyes on the road ahead. We're meandering off course, but unlike when it happened with Jade I'm not facing an impending doom of any kind. That's not to say I'm fine though, there's a fluttering sensation in the base of my stomach that just won't go away.

"Alright, we're here." Robbie states triumphantly, throwing his door open and leaping from his seat before I can ask what exactly that entails. Throwing an unruly lock of hair away from my eyes, twist in my seat and search for Robbie. He's tumbled out of sight, so I step into the morning's air after him. The wind catches me off guard, nipping at my skin and streaking through my hair. I screw my arms tightly to my chest and step around the car to where Robbie is rummaging through his trunk.

"Robbie, what are you-" The words wither away within my throat as I happen upon Robbie. He's halfway through pulling a rather large basket out of his trunk. His eyes blow open as he notices me looking at him, as though the beaming smile on my face has caught him off guard. I guess it's beaming, I'm not really sure though. I feel like the world beneath me is spinning more than usual.

"I uh…breakfast?" Robbie's lips twitch uncertainly as he speaks. His tone wavers somewhere between hope and nervousness, and it might be the cutest thing I've ever seen. I reach over and help him to free his basket from his trunk, giggles slipping through my lips as he grunts with the exertion of tugging it into the air.

We amble over to a bench that overlooks the waves and that annoying fluttering in my stomach only grows stronger with each step. I'd say it's something like butterflies, but butterflies don't cause this much turbulence. It's got to be something bigger, something more cosmic. He sits next to me, and despite his gangly limbs, my heart skips a beat. I feel ridiculous, but when Robbie's eyes meet mine, I feel my cheeks flush. I thought food was supposed to be the way to a boys heart, not a girls.

The food that Robbie has prepared far exceeds anything I'm capable of conjuring. I'm not sure what I expected when he opened that basket, but it certainly wasn't this. Robbie's eyes fly over to me every few moments when he thinks I won't see, but I do. I'd take offense, but I find my gaze creeping over to him just as often. I honestly can't wrap my head around why he'd go to so much trouble for me. We're friends, but this is the kind of thing that could quite easily sweep a girl off her feet.

"That. Was. Amazing." I moan, leaning back against the bench and letting my head loll back. I let my eyelids slide shut and rub my stomach in satisfaction. It feels nice to have eaten something more substantial than a piece of fruit in the morning. Peeking through my eyelid, I catch Robbie from the corner of my eyes. Without really noticing it happen, I find myself leaning against Robbie's side. I can feel the heat radiating off him and without even opening my eyes, I know that he's blushing. I find myself grinning and thinking that he'll just have to deal with it. You shouldn't do something like this for a girl if you can't handle the attention.

Time drifts past us with the breeze, and I'm not sure whether it's because I'm still half asleep or not, but this whole morning feels like a dream. I've had boyfriends in the past that wouldn't have gone to even half this amount of trouble for an anniversary. Sighing, I wonder whether I've ever had a boyfriend that would have bothered this much. Sifting through my memories, I'm almost certain that I haven't. Something shifts beside me, and I open to eyes to investigate. Turning my head, I'm greeted my Robbie's concerned eyes. His thick eyebrows meet in the center of his forehead and carve worried lines in his skin.

"What's wrong?" He asks, leaning toward me. It's almost kind of invigorating to have somebody care this much after being brushes aside so often lately. My lips slip into another easy smile and I shake my head. All of the concerns seem to scatter from my thoughts, leaving me in this one perfect moment, with this one imperfect boy.

"Right now? Nothing." I lock eyes with Robbie as the waves roll in the distance. He's trying to keep his face passive, but his eyes flicker with nervous energy. As if acting on it's own, my hand drifts over to Robbie's. My fingers fill the spaces between his, like we're a perfect fit and I'm convinced that it's a sign. Leaning forward impulsively, I press my lips to Robbie's. It's a caress that only lasts for a second, but it feels like a lifetime. When I break away from him the reality of my actions sets in and my cheeks ignite with a crimson tone. But when Robbie's lips curve upward, try as I might, I can't smother the smile that lifts my own lips.

"C-can we do this again?" Robbie asks, barely pulling his thoughts into order in the wake of our embrace. My heart's flailing wildly within my chest, as our eyes meet again. My lips stutter as all of the confidence within me dries up. Why am I freaking out? It was just a little peck on the lips between friends; I was just thanking him for making me feel better.

"Breakfast?" I ask innocently, feigning ignorance to the implications that lie behind his words. Robbie shakes his head slightly, and I wonder why I hadn't noticed the way that his hair bounces before now. I wonder how many other things I'd missed about him. I wonder why his lips are pressed against mine and I wonder why my fingers are sweeping through his hair and holding him in place.

"That too…" He comments breathlessly, when I finally release him from my grip. A shaky breath rattles though my lips, as my mind catches up with reality. I know that Robbie's so fragile that holding him close is a good way to end up with shards in my hands, but looking into his eyes, it's a gamble I'll take. Tracing a shape on his shoulder, I lean towards him and breath a simple answer onto his skin, a simple answer destined to change everything.

"We can definitely do this again."

* * *

**It just popped into my head and wouldn't go away, so here it is. Some mindless Rori fluff based off the Driving Tori Crazy episode :)**


End file.
